Cited Text Quotes

Books to me are not expanded journal articles, but reading experiences, and the academics who tend to read in order to cite in their writing--rather than read for enjoyment, curiosity, or simply because they like to read--tend to be frustrated when they can't rapidly scan the text and summarize it in one sentence that connects it to some existing discourse in which they have been involved.

I say there is no modern evil which cannot be justified by these ancient texts; and there is nowhere in Christendom a clergy which cannot be persuaded to cite them at the demand of ruling classes.

The true test of any scholar's work is not what his contemporaries say, but what happens to his work in the next 25 or 50 years. And the thing that I will really be proud of is if some of the work I have done is still cited in the text books long after I am gone.

The kind of intelligent book club discussion as now happens on the book sharing site Goodreads might follow the book itself and become more deeply embedded into the book via hyperlinks. So when a person cites a particular passage, a two-way link connects the comment to the passage and the passage to the comment. Even a minor good work could accumulate a wiki-like set of critical comments tightly bound to the actual text.

Even if we have a reliable criterion for detecting design, and even if that criterion tells us that biological systems are designed, it seems that determining a biological system to be designed is akin to shrugging our shoulders and saying God did it. The fear is that admitting design as an explanation will stifle scientific inquiry, that scientists will stop investigating difficult problems because they have a sufficient explanation already. But design is not a science stopper. Indeed, design can foster inquiry where traditional evolutionary approaches obstruct it. Consider the term "junk DNA." Implicit in this term is the view that because the genome of an organism has been cobbled together through a long, undirected evolutionary process, the genome is a patchwork of which only limited portions are essential to the organism. Thus on an evolutionary view we expect a lot of useless DNA. If, on the other hand, organisms are designed, we expect DNA, as much as possible, to exhibit function. And indeed, the most recent findings suggest that designating DNA as "junk" merely cloaks our current lack of knowledge about function. For instance, in a recent issue of the Journal of Theoretical Biology, John Bodnar describes how "non-coding DNA in eukaryotic genomes encodes a language which programs organismal growth and development." Design encourages scientists to look for function where evolution discourages it. Or consider vestigial organs that later are found to have a function after all. Evolutionary biology texts often cite the human coccyx as a "vestigial structure" that hearkens back to vertebrate ancestors with tails. Yet if one looks at a recent edition of Gray’s Anatomy, one finds that the coccyx is a crucial point of contact with muscles that attach to the pelvic floor. The phrase "vestigial structure" often merely cloaks our current lack of knowledge about function. The human appendix, formerly thought to be vestigial, is now known to be a functioning component of the immune system.

Composed in Britain at some point between the eighth and early eleventh century, Beowulf is believed to be the oldest surviving long poem in Old English (consisting of 3182 lines) and is commonly cited as one of the most important works of Old English literature. The identity of its Anglo-Saxon author is unknown and the writer is usually referred to as the “Beowulf poet”.

The slavery debate alerts us to self-justifying tendencies at work in how we use the Bible. Whenever our interpretation leads to injustice, oppression, or structural violence, then the very heart of the Bible is repudiated. Such views are anti-biblical, no matter what texts they cite.

The most important of these texts are the Nuzi tablets from northern Iraq, which date to the fifteenth century B.C.E. To cite just a few examples, in Nuzi a barren wife is required to provide a slave woman for her husband to bear his children—a clear parallel to the biblical story of Sarai and Hagar in Gen 16.

Patrice a vingt-quatre ans et, la première fois que je l’ai vu, il était dans son fauteuil incliné très en arrière. Il a eu un accident vasculaire cérébral. Physiquement, il est incapable du moindre mouvement, des pieds jusqu’à la racine des cheveux. Comme on le dit souvent d’une manière très laide, il a l’aspect d’un légume : bouche de travers, regard fixe. Tu peux lui parler, le toucher, il reste immobile, sans réaction, comme s’il était complètement coupé du monde. On appelle ça le locked in syndrome.Quand tu le vois comme ça, tu ne peux qu’imaginer que l’ensemble de son cerveau est dans le même état. Pourtant il entend, voit et comprend parfaitement tout ce qui se passe autour de lui. On le sait, car il est capable de communiquer à l’aide du seul muscle qui fonctionne encore chez lui : le muscle de la paupière. Il peut cligner de l’œil. Pour l’aider à s’exprimer, son interlocuteur lui propose oralement des lettres de l’alphabet et, quand la bonne lettre est prononcée, Patrice cligne de l’œil.  Lorsque j’étais en réanimation, que j’étais complètement paralysé et que j’avais des tuyaux plein la bouche, je procédais de la même manière avec mes proches pour pouvoir communiquer. Nous n’étions pas très au point et il nous fallait parfois un bon quart d’heure pour dicter trois pauvres mots. Au fil des mois, Patrice et son entourage ont perfectionné la technique. Une fois, il m’est arrivé d’assister à une discussion entre Patrice et sa mère. C’est très impressionnant.La mère demande d’abord : « Consonne ? » Patrice acquiesce d’un clignement de paupière. Elle lui propose différentes consonnes, pas forcément dans l’ordre alphabétique, mais dans l’ordre des consonnes les plus utilisées. Dès qu’elle cite la lettre que veut Patrice, il cligne de l’œil. La mère poursuit avec une voyelle et ainsi de suite. Souvent, au bout de deux ou trois lettres trouvées, elle anticipe le mot pour gagner du temps. Elle se trompe rarement. Cinq ou six mots sont ainsi trouvés chaque minute.  C’est avec cette technique que Patrice a écrit un texte, une sorte de longue lettre à tous ceux qui sont amenés à le croiser. J’ai eu la chance de lire ce texte où il raconte ce qui lui est arrivé et comment il se sent. À cette lecture, j’ai pris une énorme gifle. C’est un texte brillant, écrit dans un français subtil, léger malgré la tragédie du sujet, rempli d’humour et d’autodérision par rapport à l’état de son auteur. Il explique qu’il y a de la vie autour de lui, mais qu’il y en a aussi en lui. C’est juste la jonction entre les deux mondes qui est un peu compliquée.Jamais je n’aurais imaginé que ce texte si puissant ait été écrit par ce garçon immobile, au regard entièrement vide.  Avec l’expérience acquise ces derniers mois, je pensais être capable de diagnostiquer l’état des uns et des autres seulement en les croisant ; j’ai reçu une belle leçon grâce à Patrice.Une leçon de courage d’abord, étant donné la vitalité des propos que j’ai lus dans sa lettre, et, aussi, une leçon sur mes a priori. Plus jamais dorénavant je ne jugerai une personne handicapée à la vue seule de son physique. C’est jamais inintéressant de prendre une bonne claque sur ses propres idées reçues .

The Bible proposes an alternative storyline—a true storyline—that invites the community and the individual to find themselves in an already-existing story—the ongoing life of Christ. When Jesus was tempted by the devil in the wilderness, he responded with Scripture. But Jesus’ response was not just proof texts against false teaching. By citing the particular Scriptures he did, from Deuteronomy, Jesus was pointing to the fact that he knew what the devil was up to—because the people of God had already been in the place of testing—to seek food, protection, and glory from somewhere other than from God.

The book of Revelation was one of the least copied and read books of the New Testament and had difficulty making its way into the canon. In the first four Christian centuries, it was accepted mainly by the churches of the western part of the empire, where some leaders such as Irenaeus, Hippolytus, and Victorinus cited it as an authoritative text. Other writers found its message dangerous and claimed it was forged in the name of the apostle John. In the eastern empire, the book was for the most part not well received, for two reasons. For one thing, many church leaders found its crass materialism offensive. As Christian leaders began to stress the importance of a spiritual union with God rather than carnal, physical rewards for obedience, they considered Revelation hopelessly indebted to a view of leisure and pleasure embraced by the wider culture. The Christian faith was supposed to be different. The book, then, did not represent a revelation of the true God and his Christ.

The Gospels were written in such temporal and geographical proximity to the events they record that it would have been almost impossible to fabricate events. Anyone who cared to could have checked out the accuracy of what they reported. The fact that the disciples were able to proclaim the resurrection in Jerusalem in the face of their enemies a few weeks after the crucifixion shows that what they proclaimed was true, for they could never have proclaimed the resurrection under such circumstances had it not occurred. The Gospels could not have been corrupted without a great outcry on the part of orthodox Christians. Against the idea that there could have been a deliberate falsifying of the text, no one could have corrupted all the manuscripts. Moreover, there is no precise time when the falsification could have occurred, since, as we have seen, the New Testament books are cited by the church fathers in regular and close succession. The text could not have been falsified before all external testimony, since then the apostles were still alive and could repudiate any such tampering with the Gospels. The miracles of Jesus were witnessed by hundreds of people, friends and enemies alike; that the apostles had the ability to testify accurately to what they saw; that the apostles were of such doubtless honesty and sincerity as to place them above suspicion of fraud; that the apostles, though of low estate, nevertheless had comfort and life itself to lose in proclaiming the gospel; and that the events to which they testified took place in the civilized part of the world under the Roman Empire, in Jerusalem, the capital city of the Jewish nation. Thus, there is no reason to doubt the apostles’ testimony concerning the miracles and resurrection of Jesus. It would have been impossible for so many to conspire together to perpetrate such a hoax. And what was there to gain by lying? They could expect neither honor, nor wealth, nor worldly profit, nor fame, nor even the successful propagation of their doctrine. Moreover, they had been raised in a religion that was vastly different from the one they preached. Especially foreign to them was the idea of the death and resurrection of the Jewish Messiah. This militates against their concocting this idea. The Jewish laws against deceit and false testimony were very severe, which fact would act as a deterrent to fraud. Suppose that no resurrection or miracles occurred: how then could a dozen men, poor, coarse, and apprehensive, turn the world upside down? If Jesus did not rise from the dead, declares Ditton, then either we must believe that a small, unlearned band of deceivers overcame the powers of the world and preached an incredible doctrine over the face of the whole earth, which in turn received this fiction as the sacred truth of God; or else, if they were not deceivers, but enthusiasts, we must believe that these extremists, carried along by the impetus of extravagant fancy, managed to spread a falsity that not only common folk, but statesmen and philosophers as well, embraced as the sober truth. Because such a scenario is simply unbelievable, the message of the apostles, which gave birth to Christianity, must be true. Belief in Jesus’ resurrection flourished in the very city where Jesus had been publicly crucified. If the people of Jerusalem thought that Jesus’ body was in the tomb, few would have been prepared to believe such nonsense as that Jesus had been raised from the dead. And, even if they had so believed, the Jewish authorities would have exposed the whole affair simply by pointing to Jesus’ tomb or perhaps even exhuming the body as decisive proof that Jesus had not been raised. Three great, independently established facts—the empty tomb, the resurrection appearances, and the origin of the Christian faith—all point to the same marvelous conclusion: that God raised Jesus from the dead.

Adventists urged to study women’s ordination for themselves Adventist Church President Ted N. C. Wilson appealed to members to study the Bible regarding the theology of ordination as the Church continues to examine the matter at Annual Council next month and at General Conference Session next year. Above, Wilson delivers the Sabbath sermon at Annual Council last year. [ANN file photo] President Wilson and TOSC chair Stele also ask for prayers for Holy Spirit to guide proceedings September 24, 2014 | Silver Spring, Maryland, United States | Andrew McChesney/Adventist Review Ted N. C. Wilson, president of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, appealed to church members worldwide to earnestly read what the Bible says about women’s ordination and to pray that he and other church leaders humbly follow the Holy Spirit’s guidance on the matter. Church members wishing to understand what the Bible teaches on women’s ordination have no reason to worry about where to start, said Artur A. Stele, who oversaw an unprecedented, two-year study on women’s ordination as chair of the church-commissioned Theology of Ordination Study Committee. Stele, who echoed Wilson’s call for church members to read the Bible and pray on the issue, recommended reading the study’s three brief “Way Forward Statements,” which cite Bible texts and Adventist Church co-founder Ellen G. White to support each of the three positions on women’s ordination that emerged during the committee’s research. The results of the study will be discussed in October at the Annual Council, a major business meeting of church leaders. The Annual Council will then decide whether to ask the nearly 2,600 delegates of the world church to make a final call on women’s ordination in a vote at the General Conference Session next July. Wilson, speaking in an interview, urged each of the church’s 18 million members to prayerfully read the study materials, available on the website of the church’s Office of Archives, Statistics, and Research. "Look to see how the papers and presentations were based on an understanding of a clear reading of Scripture,” Wilson said in his office at General Conference headquarters in Silver Spring, Maryland. “The Spirit of Prophecy tells us that we are to take the Bible just as it reads,” he said. “And I would encourage each church member, and certainly each representative at the Annual Council and those who will be delegates to the General Conference Session, to prayerfully review those presentations and then ask the Holy Spirit to help them know God’s will.” The Spirit of Prophecy refers to the writings of White, who among her statements on how to read the Bible wrote in The Great Controversy (p. 598), “The language of the Bible should be explained according to its obvious meaning, unless a symbol or figure is employed.” “We don’t have the luxury of having the Urim and the Thummim,” Wilson said, in a nod to the stones that the Israelite high priest used in Old Testament times to learn God’s will. “Nor do we have a living prophet with us. So we must rely upon the Holy Spirit’s leading in our own Bible study as we review the plain teachings of Scripture.” He said world church leadership was committed to “a very open, fair, and careful process” on the issue of women’s ordination. Wilson added that the crucial question facing the church wasn’t whether women should be ordained but whether church members who disagreed with the final decision on ordination, whatever it might be, would be willing to set aside their differences to focus on the church’s 151-year mission: proclaiming Revelation 14 and the three angels’ messages that Jesus is coming soon. 3 Views on Women’s Ordination In an effort to better understand the Bible’s teaching on ordination, the church established the Theology of Ordination Study Committee, a group of 106 members commonly referred to by church leaders as TOSC. It was not organized

The Book of Enoch is an ancient Jewish text, which indeed elaborates on the cryptic verse from Genesis 6:4: “The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and also afterwards—when the sons of God went into the daughters of men.” While scholars disagree about when the book was actually written (with some putting it at ca. 300 B.C.), the book is cited in the New Testament Letter of Jude and the First Letter of Peter, and copies of it were found among the Dead Sea Scrolls. The book was clearly known to first-century Jews and Christians but was considered apocryphal by St. Augustine, among others, and disappeared for more than a thousand years. By the tenth century, the Book of Enoch would have been considered a lost work of scripture, only to be rediscovered centuries later, in 1773, by the Scottish explorer James Bruce during his travels in Abyssinia (Ethiopia).

When she’s in a courtroom, Wendy Patrick, a deputy district attorney for San Diego, uses some of the roughest words in the English language. She has to, given that she prosecutes sex crimes. Yet just repeating the words is a challenge for a woman who not only holds a law degree but also degrees in theology and is an ordained Baptist minister. “I have to say (a particularly vulgar expletive) in court when I’m quoting other people, usually the defendants,” she admitted. There’s an important reason Patrick has to repeat vile language in court. “My job is to prove a case, to prove that a crime occurred,” she explained. “There’s often an element of coercion, of threat, (and) of fear. Colorful language and context is very relevant to proving the kind of emotional persuasion, the menacing, a flavor of how scary these guys are. The jury has to be made aware of how bad the situation was. Those words are disgusting.” It’s so bad, Patrick said, that on occasion a judge will ask her to tone things down, fearing a jury’s emotions will be improperly swayed. And yet Patrick continues to be surprised when she heads over to San Diego State University for her part-time work of teaching business ethics. “My students have no qualms about dropping the ‘F-bomb’ in class,” she said. “The culture in college campuses is that unless they’re disruptive or violating the rules, that’s (just) the way kids talk.” Experts say people swear for impact, but the widespread use of strong language may in fact lessen that impact, as well as lessen society’s ability to set apart certain ideas and words as sacred. . . . [C]onsider the now-conversational use of the texting abbreviation “OMG,” for “Oh, My God,” and how the full phrase often shows up in settings as benign as home-design shows without any recognition of its meaning by the speakers. . . . Diane Gottsman, an etiquette expert in San Antonio, in a blog about workers cleaning up their language, cited a 2012 Career Builder survey in which 57 percent of employers say they wouldn’t hire a candidate who used profanity. . . . She added, “It all comes down to respect: if you wouldn’t say it to your grandmother, you shouldn’t say it to your client, your boss, your girlfriend or your wife.” And what about Hollywood, which is often blamed for coarsening the language? According to Barbara Nicolosi, a Hollywood script consultant and film professor at Azusa Pacific University, an evangelical Christian school, lazy script writing is part of the explanation for the blue tide on television and in the movies. . . . By contrast, she said, “Bad writers go for the emotional punch of crass language,” hence the fire-hose spray of obscenities [in] some modern films, almost regardless of whether or not the subject demands it. . . . Nicolosi, who noted that “nobody misses the bad language” when it’s omitted from a script, said any change in the industry has to come from among its ranks: “Writers need to have a conversation among themselves and in the industry where we popularize much more responsible methods in storytelling,” she said. . . . That change can’t come quickly enough for Melissa Henson, director of grass-roots education and advocacy for the Parents Television Council, a pro-decency group. While conceding there is a market for “adult-themed” films and language, Henson said it may be smaller than some in the industry want to admit. “The volume of R-rated stuff that we’re seeing probably far outpaces what the market would support,” she said. By contrast, she added, “the rate of G-rated stuff is hardly sufficient to meet market demands.” . . . Henson believes arguments about an “artistic need” for profanity are disingenuous. “You often hear people try to make the argument that art reflects life,” Henson said. “I don’t hold to that. More often than not, ‘art’ shapes the way we live our lives, and it skews our perceptions of the kind of life we're supposed to live." [DN, Apr. 13, 2014]

QUESTIONS 1. Is the doctrine of the Trinity revealed in the Old Testament? In the New Testament% 2. Is the God revealed in the Old Testament the Triune God? How can this be proved% 3. Cite an Old Testament text to prove that God is not a single person. 4. Cite a text which indicates that the Angel of Jehovah is Jehovah (God). 5. Cite a prophetic text which shows that God promised to send God incarnate. 6. Why did the apostles accept the "doctrine" of the Trinity? 7. What two essential elements of the doctrine of the Trinity are taught in the baptismal form of Matthew? 8. The Larger Catechism states that each of the three persons of the Godhead is seen to be God because Scripture attributes to each of them such names, attributes, works, and worship as are proper to God only. Can you cite Scripture references showing that the names, attributes, works, and worship proper to God are associated with each of the three persons (the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost)?

As an author writing about software engineering, I am committed to providing the best grounding for any factual claims I make or support. To that end I will: only cite papers that I have in fact personally read refrain from indirect quotation (or other ‘telephone game’ variants) make it clear whenever I’m citing opinion or indirect quotation, as opposed to original research cite page and section numbers when available, and always when citing books whenever possible, cite papers freely available online in full text versions refrain from citing obscure or non peer-reviewed sources check that the data I’m citing actually supports the claim look for contradictory evidence as well as supporting, to avoid confirmation bias only make prudent claims, and present all plausible threats to validity.

The avoidance or postponement of answering such deep and basic questions was traditionally the province of religion, which excelled at it. Every thinking person always knew that an insuperable mystery lay at the final square of the game board, and that there was no possible way of avoiding it. So, when we ran out of explanations and processes and causes that preceded the previous cause, we said, “God did it.” Now, this book is not going to discuss spiritual beliefs nor take sides on whether this line of thinking is wrong or right. It will only observe that invoking a deity provided something that was crucially required: it permitted the inquiry to reach some sort of agreed-upon endpoint. As recently as a century ago, science texts routinely cited God and “God’s glory” whenever they reached the truly deep and unanswerable portions of the issue at hand.

Many organizers cite books like Woman on the Edge of Time, Dhalgren, Midnight Robber, Futureland, The Dispossessed, Fifth Sacred Thing, Who Fears Death? and Lillith’s Brood as important texts to study for anyone thinking about building alternatives to incarceration.

But the fact that the New Testament winters used this version on many occasions supplies a new proof in opposition to the idea of its authority, for in not a few places they do not follow it, but they suppl)'• a version of their own which rightly represents the Hebrew text, although contradicting the Septuagint. The use, however, which the writers of the New Testament have made of the Septuagint version must always invest it with a peculiar interest; we thus see Avhat honour God may be pleased to put on an honestly-made version, since we find that inspired Avriters often used such a version, when it was sufficiently near the original to suit the purpose for which it was cited, instead of rendering the Hebrew text de novo on every occasion.

Another recent study, this one on academic research, provides real-world evidence of the way the tools we use to sift information online influence our mental habits and frame our thinking. James Evans, a sociologist at the University of Chicago, assembled an enormous database on 34 million scholarly articles published in academic journals from 1945 through 2005. He analyzed the citations included in the articles to see if patterns of citation, and hence of research, have changed as journals have shifted from being printed on paper to being published online. Considering how much easier it is to search digital text than printed text, the common assumption has been that making journals available on the Net would significantly broaden the scope of scholarly research, leading to a much more diverse set of citations. But that’s not at all what Evans discovered. As more journals moved online, scholars actually cited fewer articles than they had before. And as old issues of printed journals were digitized and uploaded to the Web, scholars cited more recent articles with increasing frequency. A broadening of available information led, as Evans described it, to a “narrowing of science and scholarship.”31 In explaining the counterintuitive findings in a 2008 Science article, Evans noted that automated information-filtering tools, such as search engines, tend to serve as amplifiers of popularity, quickly establishing and then continually reinforcing a consensus about what information is important and what isn’t. The ease of following hyperlinks, moreover, leads online researchers to “bypass many of the marginally related articles that print researchers” would routinely skim as they flipped through the pages of a journal or a book. The quicker that scholars are able to “find prevailing opinion,” wrote Evans, the more likely they are “to follow it, leading to more citations referencing fewer articles.” Though much less efficient than searching the Web, old-fashioned library research probably served to widen scholars’ horizons: “By drawing researchers through unrelated articles, print browsing and perusal may have facilitated broader comparisons and led researchers into the past.”32 The easy way may not always be the best way, but the easy way is the way our computers and search engines encourage us to take.

Prayers to deities preserved from the ancient Near East share many of the same themes as Biblical prayers. Individuals sensed guilt and divine abandonment (see notes on Ps 6:1, 3; 13:1; 32:4; 51:1, 5); they felt physical suffering (see notes on Ps 22:14, 17; 38:2–3), emotional pain and shame (see notes on Ps 6:6; 25:2) and loss of friendship (see note on Ps 31:11); and they faced death (see note on Ps 16:10). At times their afflictions involved legal entanglements accompanied by slander and curses (see notes on Ps 17:2; 41:5–6; 62:4). They responded with cries for a divine hearing (see note on Ps 55:17) and justice (see the article “Imprecations and Incantations”). In ancient Mesopotamia, letters written to gods and deposited in the temple also served to bring requests before the deity. The use of rather generic names in these letters, as well as their transmission through the curriculum of scribal schools, suggests that anyone could relate his or her experience with those recorded in these prayers. In later tradition, similar prayers were cited orally by a priest rather than deposited in the temple. Much of the language of these prayers and letters, including the Biblical psalms, was general and metaphoric, allowing these texts to serve as examples for others to use in their specific circumstances. While the details of hardship might have differed, the emotional experiences and theological thoughts could be shared by anyone. As in Biblical psalms, the Mesopotamian prayers include protests of innocence, praise to the deity and vows to offer thanks for deliverance. Often specific attributes of the deity are named that correspond to the affliction and desired deliverance of the worshiper. Such elements function within the lament as motivation for the deity to respond to the worshiper’s plight. ◆ Key Concepts • Many psalms are an expression of emotion, and God responds to us in our emotional highs and lows. • Psalms is a book with purpose. • Psalms 1–2 embody the message of the book.

Isaiah 7:14. This verse has seen a great deal of discussion in the history of interpretation. The text of the verse from the NET BIBLE is as follows: Look, this young woman is about to conceive and will give birth to a son. You, young woman, will name him Immanuel. The most visible issue surrounding this verse is the translation of the Hebrew word עַלְמָה (’almah). The NET BIBLE uses the phrase “young woman,” while many translations use the word “virgin.” The arguments center upon two main points: the actual meaning of the term as it is used in Hebrew, and the use of this verse in the New Testament. There is a great deal of debate about the actual meaning of the Hebrew word. However, in the New Testament when this verse is cited in Matthew 1:23 the Greek word παρθένος (parthenos) is used, and this word can mean nothing but “virgin.” Therefore, many people see Isaiah 7:14 as a prophecy about the virgin birth with Matthew 1:23 serving as a “divine commentary” on the Isaiah passage which establishes its meaning. The interplay of these issues makes a resolution quite complex. It is the opinion of the translators and editors that the Hebrew word used in Isaiah 7:14 means “young woman” and actually carries no connotations of sexual experience, so the grammatical context of the verse in the Old Testament is in our opinion fairly straightforward. Neither does the historical context of Isaiah 7:14 point to any connection with the birth of the Messiah: in its original historical context, this verse was pointing to a sign for King Ahaz that the alliance between Syria and Israel which was threatening the land of Judah would come to nothing. The theological context of Isaiah 7:14 is also limited: it is a presentation of God’s divine power to show himself strong on behalf of his people. The role or birth of the Messiah does not come into view here. So the historical and theological contexts of the verse support the grammatical: the word עַלְמָה (’almah) means “young woman” and should be translated as such. Within the book of Isaiah itself, however, the author begins to develop the theological context of this verse, and this provides a connection to the use of the passage in Matthew. In Isaiah 8:9-10 the prophet delivers an announcement of future victory over Israel’s enemies; the special child Immanuel, alluded to in the last line of v. 10, is a guarantee that the covenant promises of God will result in future greatness. The child mentioned in Isaiah 7:14 is a pledge of God’s presence during the time of Ahaz, but he also is a promise of God’s presence in the future when he gives his people victory over all their enemies. This theological development progresses even further when another child is promised in Isaiah 9:6-7 who will be a perfect ruler over Israel, manifesting God’s presence perfectly and ultimately among his people. The New Testament author draws from this development and uses the original passage in Isaiah to make the connection between the child originally promised and the child who would be the ultimate fulfillment of that initial promise. The use of Isaiah 7:14 in Matthew 1:23 draws upon the theological development present in the book of Isaiah, but it does not change the meaning of Isaiah 7:14 in its original context.

Anyone who has spent much time wading through the pious, obscurantist, jargon-lilted cant that now passes for ‘advanced’ thought in the humanities knew it was bound to happen sooner or later: some clever academic, armed with the not-so-secret passwords (‘hermeneutics’, ‘transgressive’, ‘Lacanian’, ‘hegemony’, to name but a few) would write a completely bogus paper, submit it to an au courant journal, and have it accepted ... Sokal's piece uses all the right terms. It cites all the best people. It whacks sinners (white men, the ‘real world’), applauds the virtuous (women, general metaphysical lunacy)... And it is complete, unadulterated bullshit — a fact that somehow escaped the attention of the high-powered editors of Social Text, who must now be experiencing that queasy sensation that afflicted the Trojans the morning after they pulled that nice big gift horse into their city.

This is the heart of Paul’s argument about God’s “righteousness”—that is, his faithfulness to the covenant. The covenant in question is the covenant made with Abraham, which Paul expounds in Romans 4. As far as Paul is concerned from reading the ancient texts, this covenant is not just with Abraham, but is the promise that through Abraham and his family God would bless all the nations. In case there is any doubt on this point (which there often is), we can cite once again Paul’s closing summary of the whole message in 15:8–9: The Messiah became a servant of the circumcised people in order to demonstrate the truthfulness of God—that is, to confirm the promises to the patriarchs, and to bring the nations to praise God for his mercy.

In the ensuing centuries, texts that contained such dangerous ideas paid a heavy price for their ‘heresy’. As has been lucidly argued by Dirk Rohmann, an academic who has produced a comprehensive and powerful account of the effect of Christianity on books, some of the greatest figures in the early Church rounded on the atomists. Augustine disliked atomism for precisely the same reason that atomists liked it: it weakened mankind’s terror of divine punishment and Hell. Texts by philosophical schools that championed atomic theory suffered. The Greek philosopher Democritus had perhaps done more than anyone to popularize this theory – though not only this one. Democritus was an astonishing polymath who had written works on a breathless array of other topics. A far from complete list of his titles includes: On History; On Nature; the Science of Medicine; On the Tangents of the Circle and the Sphere; On Irrational Lines and Solids; On the Causes of Celestial Phenomena; On the Causes of Atmospheric Phenomena; On Reflected Images . . . The list goes on. Today Democritus’s most famous theory is his atomism. What did the other theories state? We have no idea: every single one of his works was lost in the ensuing centuries. As the eminent physicist Carlo Rovelli recently wrote, after citing an even longer list of the philosopher’s titles: ‘the loss of the works of Democritus in their entirety is the greatest intellectual tragedy to ensue from the collapse of the old classical civilisation’.

On the same day, a bunch of school-aged adolescents in Soweto got tired of the government’s latest idea: that their already inferior education should henceforth be conducted in Afrikaans. So the students went out into the streets to air their disapproval. They were of the opinion that it was easier to learn something when one understood what one’s instructor was saying. And that a text was more accessible to the reader if one could interpret the text in question. Therefore—said the students—their education should continue to be conducted in English. The surrounding police listened with interest to the youth’s reasoning, and then the argued the government’s point in that special manner of the South African authorities. By opening fire. Straight into the crowd of demonstrators. Twenty-three demonstrators died more or less instantly. The next day, the police advanced their argument with helicopters and tanks. Before dust had settled, another hundred human lives had been extinguished. The City of Johannesburg’s department of education was therefore able to adjust Soweto’s budgetary allocations downward, citing lack of students.

In his eyes Hobbes, who had savaged the Church in Leviathan (1651), was unambiguously wicked, and excluding him was a pleasure. He told his friend Thomas Tyers that he had ‘scorned’ to quote Hobbes ‘because I did not like his principles’.6 Among the texts he did cite, however, was John Bramhall’s 1658 Castigations of Mr Hobbes, a book now known, if at all, for having been praised by T. S. Eliot. For

Islam provides the method by which our hearts can become sound and safe again. This method has been the subject of brilliant and insightful scholarship for centuries in the Islamic tradition. One can say that Islam in essence is a program to restore purity and calm to the heart through the remembrance of God. This present text is based on the poem known as Maṭharat al-Qulūb (literally, Purification of the Hearts), which offers the means by which purification can be achieved. It is a treatise on the “alchemy of the hearts,” namely, a manual on how to transform the heart. It was written by a great scholar and saint, Shaykh Muhammad Mawlud al Ya’qubi al-Musawi al-Muratani, As his name indicates, he was from Mauritania in West Africa. He was a master of all the Islamic sciences, including the inward sciences of the heart. He stated that he wrote this poem because he observed the prevalence of diseased hearts. He saw students of religion spending their time learning abstract sciences that people were not really in need of, to the neglect of those sciences that pertain to what people are accountable for in the next life, namely, the spiritual condition of the heart, In one of his most cited statements, the Prophet said, “Actions are based upon intentions.” All deeds are thus valued according to the intentions behind them, and intentions emanate from the heart. So every action a person intends or performs is rooted in the heart. Imam Mawlud realized that the weakness of society was a matter of weakness of character in the heart, Imam Mawlud based his text on many previous illustrious works, especially Imam al-Ghazali’s great Ihya’ Ulum alDin (The Revivification of the Sciences of the Religion). Each of the 40 books of Ihya‘ Ulum al-Din is basically about rectifying the human heart. If we examine the trials and tribulations, wars and other conflicts, every act of injustice all over earth, we’ll find they are rooted in human hearts.

According to widely cited statistics, 80%–95% of the data in the world comes in unstructured form: text, images, videos, and the like.

Marshaling an impressive array of historical evidence,” wrote Justice Clarence Thomas in 1997, “a growing body of scholarly commentary indicates that the ‘right to keep and bear arms’ is, as the Amendment’s text suggests, a personal right.”3 He cited two books, Professor Joyce Lee Malcolm’s To Keep and Bear Arms: The Origins of an Anglo-American Right – the preeminent study of the English beginnings of the right—and this author’s That Every Man Be Armed: The Evolution of a Constitutional Right—which traces the right from its Greco-Roman origins through modern American jurisprudence.

Marshaling an impressive array of historical evidence,” writes Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, “a growing body of scholarly commentary indicates that the ‘right to keep and bear arms’ is, as the Amendment’s text suggests, a personal right.”1 He cited two books, Joyce Lee Malcolm’s To Keep and Bear Arms: The Origins of an Anglo-American Right—the preeminent study of the English beginnings of the right—and this author’s That Every Man Be Armed: The Evolution of a Constitutional Right—which traces the right from its Greco-Roman origins through modern American jurisprudence.

The Second Testament authors used the same First Testament texts independently of one another. And they interpreted them in exactly the same way, often citing the texts in the same order.

I have studied this passage myself — it is equally confusing in the Quechua translation. English-speakers frequently forget that the ancient texts were initially written, not in English, but a combination of ancient Hebrew, Greek, and Arabic. Those languages can convey subtle meanings for which English lacks an adequate translation. Ancient cultural contexts are also lost on modern readers. This is not a deficiency in the Bible but in our ability to understand it. “The Genesis passage you cited is better understood in the original Hebrew text. As I recall, the Hebrew verb for the second “entered” in verse 13 is pluperfect, which can be more closely translated as “had come.” This would imply that they “had entered” or “had finished entering” on the day that the flood began.

It is now clear that the kōan about Mahakasyapa's receiving the flower after Sakyamuni's wordless sermon, as well as slogans like "special transmission outside the teaching" and "no reliance on words and letters"—originally separate items that came to be linked in a famous Zen motto attributed to Bodhidharma—were created in the Sung dynasty. First making their appearance in eleventh-century transmissions of the lamp texts, including the Chingte chuan-teng lu (1004) and the T'ien-sheng kuang-teng lu (1036), these rhetorical devices were designed to support the autonomous identity of Zen in an era of competition with neo-Confucianism and are not to be regarded as accurate expressions of the period they are said to represent. A close examination of sources reveals that Tang masters with a reputation for irreverence and blasphemy were often quite conservative in their approach to doctrine by citing (rather than rejecting) Mahayana sutras in support of teachings that were not so distinct from, and were actually very much in accord with, contemporary Buddhist schools.

narrative. The beginning of the rule of law4 – it is often said, and is largely true – in Britain coincides with the signing by King John of the Magna Carta (the Big Charter)5 in 1215. This has two key chapters, which make clear that a person cannot be punished without due process, and that such a process cannot be bought, delayed or denied. These are critical principles in our judicial system today. As it happens, Magna Carta was in force for precisely two months (when Pope Innocent III annulled it on the grounds it had been obtained by compulsion, calling it ‘illegal, unjust, harmful to royal rights and shameful to the English people’), and did not directly lead to modern jury trials in any significant way. As an articulation of principles of justice, it owed much to existing texts, such as the coronation oaths of Anglo-Saxon kings and the law codes of Henry I. The Pope also called Magna Carta ‘void of all validity forever’. He was wrong. It has survived as both a romantic gesture and a useful precedent6 to cite as our courts became more professional and individual rights became more established. The more significant, but less heralded, legal development came a couple of centuries later with the articulation of the principle of habeas corpus. The full phrase is habeas corpus ad subjiciendum: ‘may you bring the body before the court’, which sounds pompous or funereal. What it means, though, is that everyone has a right to be tried in person before being imprisoned. If someone is held by the state without trial, a petition using this phrase should get them either freed or at least their status interrogated by a judge. Two Latin words contain the most effective measure against tyranny in existence. As time progressed in this country, then, we see

paths of the junction, you see that the junction has already been visited, you will make only one mark on the path you have taken. If all the apertures have already been marked, then you must retrace your steps. But if one or two apertures of the junction are still without signs, you will choose any one, making two signs on it. Proceeding through an aperture that bears only one sign, you will make two more, so that now the aperture bears three. All the parts of the labyrinth must have been visited if, arriving at a junction, you never take a passage with three signs, unless none of the other passages is now without signs.” “How do you know that? Are you an expert on labyrinths?” “No, I am citing an ancient text I once read.” “And by observing this rule you get out?” “Almost never, as far as I know. But we will try it, all the same.

Some of us are just tired of being used as political props,” Hostetter said, citing text messages from friends who’d been disgusted with the tone of the event. “We were hoping this would be more than another campaign rally. I mean, if you want to use biblical language to speak to political issues, fine. But at some point, you have to actually speak to the Bible. Right?

which the United States seized, in the name of liberty, Spanish imperial possessions from Cuba to the Philippines. A century after it was written, when our literature was being deployed in the 1950s as a weapon on the cultural front of the Cold War, it seemed an expression of self-serving generosity in the spirit of the Marshall Plan. By the Vietnam era, it was widely cited as an exhibit of national arrogance—a sort of naive companion text to Norman Mailer’s novel Why Are We in Vietnam?—in which one could see America in all its fatal pride. Today, amid images of the invasion and occupation of Iraq, it has again become a passage of great power and unsettling ambiguity.

there is the prophetic promise that the divine Spirit will be rather fully active in the scion of the restored Davidic royal line (Isa 11:1-3), in the "servant" in whom God delights (Isa 42:1), and even among the descendents of Israel more broadly (Isa 44:3). This idea of a wider sharing of the experience of the Spirit is also famously projected in Joel 2:28-29 (MT and LXX 3:1-5, a text explicitly cited in Acts 2:16-21 as fulfilled in the phenomena of the Pentecost episode). In a lengthy oracle, there is the following divine promise:

First, not all the proponents of limited election seem to regard these texts as particularly important. Louis Berkhof, for example, managed to write an entire systematic theology without citing either of the texts in question;129 and though John Calvin did comment upon them briefly in his commentary on 1 John, he evidently did not regard them as important enough even to mention in his Institutes of the Christian Religion. When one thinks about it, this is truly astonishing. Calvin’s Institutes is a monumental work of over 1500 pages; in it he sought to provide an exhaustive summary of Christian doctrine, as he understood it, along with the biblical support for it. In the Westminster Press edition, the index of Bible references alone is thirty-nine pages of small print with three columns per page. And yet, in this entire work, as massive and thorough as it is, Calvin never once found the Johannine declaration that God is love important enough to discuss.

Why did I cite these texts? Because otherwise I would be deemed madder than I already am. By whom? Well, first of all, by myself. How dare I propose amputation prior to indicating relevant signs of gangrene? Who am I to stand against thousands of years of culture and civilization? I can protect myself either in my madness or in actual evidence.

Why did I cite these texts? Because otherwise I would be deemed madder than I already am. By whom? Well, first of all, by myself. How dare I propose amputation prior to indicating relevant signs of gangrene? Who am I to stand against thousands of years of culture and civilization? I can protect myself either in my madness or in actual evidence.

As early as November 1966, the Red Guard Corps of Beijing Normal University had set their sights on the Confucian ancestral home in Qufu County in Shandong Province. Invoking the language of the May Fourth movement, they proceeded to Qufu, where they established themselves as the Revolutionary Rebel Liaison State to Annihilate the Old Curiosity Shop of Confucius. Within the month they had totally destroyed the Temple of Confucius, the Kong Family Mansion, the Cemetery of Confucius (including the Master’s grave), and all the statues, steles, and relics in the area... In January 1967 another Red Guard unit editorialized in the People’s Daily: To struggle against Confucius, the feudal mummy, and thoroughly eradicate . . . reactionary Confucianism is one of our important tasks in the Great Cultural Revolution. And then, to make their point, they went on a nationwide rampage, destroying temples, statues, historical landmarks, texts, and anything at all to do with the ancient Sage... The Cultural Revolution came to an end with Mao’s death in 1976. In 1978 Deng Xiaoping (1904–97) became China’s paramount leader, setting China on a course of economic and political reform, and effectively bringing an end to the Maoist ideal of class conflict and perpetual revolution. Since 2000, the leadership in Beijing, eager to advance economic prosperity and promote social stability, has talked not of the need for class conflict but of the goal of achieving a “harmonious society,” citing approvingly the passage from the Analects, “harmony is something to be cherished” (1.12). The Confucius compound in Qufu has been renovated and is now the site of annual celebrations of Confucius’s birthday in late September. In recent years, colleges and universities throughout the country—Beijing University, Qufu Normal University, Renmin University, Shaanxi Normal University, and Shandong University, to name a few—have established Confucian study and research centers. And, in the opening ceremonies of the 2008 Olympics, the Beijing Olympic Committee welcomed guests from around the world to Beijing with salutations from the Analects, “Is it not a joy to have friends come from afar?” and “Within the fours seas all men are brothers,” not with sayings from Mao’s Little Red Book. Tellingly, when the Chinese government began funding centers to support the study of the Chinese language and culture in foreign schools and universities around the globe in 2004—a move interpreted as an ef f ort to expand China’s “soft power”—it chose to name these centers Confucius Institutes... The failure of Marxism-Leninism has created an ideological vacuum, prompting people to seek new ways of understanding society and new sources of spiritual inspiration. The endemic culture of greed and corruption—spawned by the economic reforms and the celebration of wealth accompanying them—has given rise to a search for a set of values that will address these social ills. And, crucially, rising nationalist sentiments have fueled a desire to fi nd meaning within the native tradition—and to of f set the malignant ef f ects of Western decadence and materialism. Confucius has thus played a variety of roles in China’s twentieth and twenty-first centuries. At times praised, at times vilified, he has been both good guy and bad guy. Yet whether good or bad, he has always been somewhere on the stage. These days Confucius appears to be gaining favor again, in official circles and among the people. But what the future holds for him and his teachings is difficult to predict. All we can say with any certainty is that Confucius will continue to matter.

Long and personal familiarity with the application of Scripture was a key element in the Puritan ministerial makeup,” Sinclair Ferguson writes. “They pondered the riches of revealed truth the way a gemologist patiently examines the many faces of a diamond.”[11] They used Scripture wisely, bringing cited texts to bear on the doctrine or case of conscience[12] at hand, all based on sound hermeneutical principles.

It is hard to appreciate now, but there was once a time before mobile phones and text messages when people communicated with each other by sticking notes to refrigerators using magnets. It got to be so commonplace that it became the secondary purpose of fridges themselves. Families would leave dinner instructions, teenagers would explain their whereabouts, and unhappy wives would initiate divorces, all using short Heminway-esque messages affixed at eye level using coloured magnetic letters. In fact there was a widespread panic in the refrigeration industry when text messages became popular. And then, when free texts became available, the National Association of Subzero Appliances (the other NASA, as they called themselves) brought a case to the Supreme Court, citing an infringement of their right to earn a livelihood.

Naturally, your knowledge and self-discipline are of utmost importance. You are being exposed to knowledge in this text. If, in addition, you make it a habit to explore beyond what was stated by following the references cited, you will further benefit. The self-discipline is up to you totally. Knowledge only becomes powerful when correctly applied.

I read it more carefully than anyone had ever read it. . . . Kahn’s book to me is like the Vedas,” he explains, citing the centuries-old Indian text. “There’s an expression I learned: ‘If a man loses his cow, he looks for it in the Vedas.

Today pluralism operates as a court religion, while having less and less intellectual credibility. Betraying the plastic terminology in which its directives are framed are the additions to the “Human Rights Code” passed in the Canadian province of Ontario in 1994. The Code cites “human dignity” to justify the criminalization of “conduct or communication [that] promotes the superiority or inferiority of a person or class because of race, class, or sexual orientation.” The law has already been applied to prosecute scholars making hereditarian arguments about social behavior, and its proponents defend this muzzling as necessary for “human dignity.” But never are we told whence that dignity is derived. It is certainly not the one to which the Bible, a text that unequivocally condemns certain “sexual orientations,” refers. Nor are we speaking here about the dignity of nonengineered academic discourse, an act that the supporters of the Ontario Human Rights Code consider to be criminal if judged insensitive. Yet the pluralist advocates of human rights codes that now operate in Canada, Australia, England, and on the European continent assume there is a human dignity. Indeed this dignity is so widely and passionately accepted, or so it is asserted, that we must criminalize unkind communication. In the name of that supposedly axiomatic dignity, we are called upon to suppress scholarship and even to imprison its authors.

In one of his essays William Placher comments on a time when the theological use of the Bible presupposed a deep knowledge of what the Bible says.1 The example he serves up is from the final pages of Calvin’s Institutes, where the Reformer thinks through the issue of what Christians should do if they find themselves under a wicked ruler. Placher notes that Calvin reflects on Daniel and Ezekiel regarding the need to obey even bad rulers; he weighs the command to serve the king of Babylon in Jeremiah 27. He quotes from the Psalms, and he cites Isaiah to the effect that the faithful are urged to trust in God to overcome the unrighteous. On the other hand, he evenhandedly notes episodes in Exodus and Judges “where people serve God by overthrowing the evil rulers,” and texts in 1 Kings and Hosea where God’s people are criticized for being obedient to wicked kings. He cites Peter’s conclusion before Gamaliel, according to Acts: “We must obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:29). From these and other biblical passages, he proceeds to weave nuanced conclusions. We should disobey what governement mandates if it violates our religious obligations. By contrast, Christians should not normally go around starting revolutions. But those who are in positions of authority should deploy that authority to deal with those who exploit others. Even violent revolutionaries may in mysterious ways perform the will of God, though of course they may be called to judgment on account of their evil. Placher then comments: My point is not to defend all of Calvin’s conclusions, or even all of his method, but simply to illustrate how immersion in biblical texts can produce a very complex way of reflecting within a framework of biblical authority, compared to which most contemporary examples look pretty simple-minded. We can’t “appeal to the Bible” in a way that’s either helpful or faithful without beginning to do theology. Theology begins to put together a way of looking as a Christian at the world in all its variety, a language that we share as Christians and that provides a context rich enough for discussing the complexities of our lives. Absent such a shared framework, we can quote passages at each other, but the only contexts in which we can operate come from the discourses of politics and popular culture.2

Is it appropriate for those who profess to be followers of this gentle Shepherd to take up lethal weapons against enemies? More broadly, is it ever God’s will for Christians to employ violence in defense of justice? The New Testament contains important texts that seem to suggest that this question must be answered in the negative, but human experience presents us over and over again with situations that appear to require violent action to oppose evil. An often-cited example is Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s agonized decision to participate in a plot to kill Hitler.

The dissertation concluded with an epilogue pessimistically predicting that the ban would continue into the indefinite future, citing several factors. Crucial was the canonical status accorded Joseph Smith’s scriptural writings representing “the core of basic Latter-day Saint theology.” From the late nineteenth century on, Church leaders utilized the Pearl of Great Price as essential proof text affirming blacks as the literal descendants of Ham—the accursed son of Noah who had been “cursed as pertaining to the priesthood.” Also discouraging the ban’s removal was that it affected “only a few” individuals—given the stark fact that a mere handful of African-Americans had cast their lot with the LDS Church. A final factor was the potential for backlash against activists calling for change—this coming from Mormon leaders and rank-and-file members. Such was reflected in a 1972 poll which found that 70% of Utah-based Mormons opposed lifting the ban.

In its earliest uses, a catfight meant an actual physical altercation between women. One of the first citings of the term, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, was in 1854 by writer Benjamin G. Ferris to describe scuffles between Mormon wives in his book Utah and the Mormons: The History, Government, Doctrines, Customs, and Prospects of the Latter-day Saints. After he spent six months observing the community, Ferris wrote about the Mormon men practicing polygamy, or having more than one wife, and described the styles of the houses they lived in, which were designed in order to “keep the women . . . as much as possible, apart, and prevent those terrible cat-fights which sometimes occur, with all the accompaniments of Billingsgate [vulgar and coarse language], torn caps, and broken broom-sticks.

Some scribes also had difficulty with ascribing apostleship to this otherwise unknown woman, and so made a very slight change in the text to circumvent the problem. In some of our manuscripts, rather than saying "Greet Andronicus and Junia, my relatives and fellow prisoners, who are foremost among the apostles," the text is now changed so as to be more readily translated: "Greet Andronicus and Junia, my relatives; and also greet my fellow prisoners who are foremost among the apostles." With this textual change, no longer does one need to worry about a woman being cited among the apostolic band of men!